Seminole May Start 1 Year-round School In 1991

December 17, 1989|By Sara Isaac of the Sentinel Staff

SANFORD — Seminole County could put one elementary school on an experimental year-round calendar within 18 months.

At a work session last week, the school board discussed choosing an elementary school where parents, teachers and administrators agree to try a new calendar. Planning would have to begin early next year so the year-round school could open by June 1991.

Although the school board did not endorse the project, most members said they supported the idea. And they agreed to vote on the issue next month so the project could start as soon as possible.

''I think when you're in a crisis situation, you have to do something,'' said board member Pat Telson, referring to tremendous growth in student enrollment projected in Seminole County.

Under the modified calendar, the traditional three-month summer vacation is broken up into smaller chunks and distributed throughout the year. Depending on how the calendar is set, families can still have a two-week winter break and a three-week summer vacation.

Students also can be separated into several staggered ''tracks.'' With one or more of the tracks always on break, the year-round calendar can increase a building's capacity by up to 25 percent without changing the number of days that each child goes to school.

But it is not, officials warned, a simple answer to growth. Student enrollment at already overcrowded schools is expected to increase by 27,000 by 1998.

''Is this a panacea? No, no, no,'' said Michael Mizwicki, principal of Lawton Elementary in Oviedo. As part of a doctoral dissertation, Mizwicki surveyed educators around the state for their views on the year-round calendar. He presented the results Friday.

''With the growth that we have, we have to build new schools - there's no way around that,'' he said.

But putting the district's elementary schools on the year-round schedule could reduce the number of new schools needed, he said. The district plans to build 27 new schools over the next eight years if voters approve a $520 million bond issue in February.

Just as important in considering the new schedule, however, is that research seems to indicate that the shorter breaks in the year-round schedule increase a student's ability to retain information and improve the academic performance of problem students.

But year-round school also can pose problems for parents who use day care or baby sitters. It can eliminate an important source of income for teachers who work each summer. And there is concern that school districts may end up paying more per student.

Although the modified calendar reduces the money needed for construction, it boosts operating and maintenance costs.

Chairwoman Ann Neiswender asked staff to draw up estimates on how much year-round education could cost.

''I still want to see how we think it will affect our funding, in the most detail that we can,'' she said.